Quick Hits: Mooer LoFi Machine

Bummed your band can’t find a keyboardist with vintage tonal sensibilities? Want to inject your tunes with 1980s Atari or Nintendo bleep-bloop-bloop action? The LoFi Machine puts both at your disposal in a space the size of a roll of quarters.

Operation is ridiculously simple: The further you turn the bit knob, the more it imbues your signal with a digital character by reducing sampling depth (5–16 bits), while the tiny mix and sample knobs govern dry/wet ratio and sample-rate reduction (60–31,250 Hz), respectively, and a 3-way toggle optimizes EQ response for synth, guitar, or bass. Subtlety is kinda antithetical to the Machine’s being, so I preferred max-ing mix, though turning sample all the way down helped fundamentals cut through without too much digital background clutter. Set the bit knob between noon and 3 o’clock, then fingerpick moderately overdriven chords for deliciously vibey Wurlitzer 200 or Rhodes electric-piano sounds. Or, summon ominous Metroid vibes or whimsical Super Mario Bros. sounds with bit settings past 3.

As Premier Guitar chief content officer since January 2010, Shawn Hammond oversees all of PG’s articles, videos, audio, and social media offerings. Although he’s probably as loathe to admit his alma mater as they are to claim him, Shawn has a degree in journalism from Brigham Young University, and a long history in guitar journalism predating his tenure at PG. He’s an avowed Tele, Bigsby, and baritone fanatic, and as his Tuning Up columns regularly reveal, he’s kind of a cantankerous bastard who tends to flip the bird at convention.